Round up #139: how tablets and bookstores did at the holidays, Color Purple for $1.99
The ILMK Round ups are short pieces which may or may not be expanded later.
NOOK sales down 12.9%
While I don’t see the press release yet at
http://www.barnesandnobleinc.com/newsroom/press_releases_list.html
I expect it will be there later today.
Update: the press release is now posted here.
Barnes & Noble has announced holiday sales, and I’m glad they didn’t try to obfuscate the results.
Putting it simply, they weren’t good.
Here is one of the key things:
“The NOOK segment, which consists of the company’s digital business (including Readers, digital content and accessories), had revenues of $311 million for the nine-week holiday period, decreasing 12.6% as compared to a year ago. Digital content sales increased 13.1%, while NOOK device unit sales declined during the holiday period as compared to the prior year. Digital content sales are defined to include digital books, digital newsstand, and the apps business. “
Yes, digital content sales increased, and that’s good, but the offset for hardware resulted in a significant decline. They sold fewer of them this year, despite having new (and generally well-reviewed) models.
I commend CEO William Lynch for honesty, saying they “…will adjust our strategies accordingly going forward”. That might mean fewer models this year.
Did Amazon do better with multiple models?
Thanks to a reader who alerted me in a private e-mail to this
The author, Adam Levine-Weinberg, makes a reasonable point that the Kindle Fire 8.9″ doesn’t sit atop the bestseller list at Amazon, and may not have done as well as might be expected. While I use mine daily, I would have to say it is the Kindle with which I have been least thrilled. It’s a lot more money for what doesn’t seem to me to be a lot more value over the 7″, at least for me. I got the 4G model, mostly so I could write about it, but I almost haven’t used 4G at all, except for testing it. The larger screen doesn’t seem worth the increased bulkiness, but that might be just me.
I recommend the article, so you can see the methodology.
$50 off KF8.9 for Amazon Students
Amazon is giving
$50 off KF8.9 for Amazon Students
this month, lowering the price to $249 for the least expensive.
For the wi-fi only model, that gets it down to a more reasonable price. You still have to decide if 2.9″ of screen size is worth $50 extra for you, and you do get X-Ray for Textbooks (which I have not tested yet).
Read the details at the above link before buying. You need to be a qualified member of Amazon Student (a type of Amazon Prime, basically), and that includes being a free member. You need to enter a code (KNDL4STU) at check-out.
KDD: The Color Purple for $1.99
Among today’s Kindle Daily Deals is The Color Purple by Alice Walker for $1.99. This is the Pulitzer Prize winner which was adapted into a movie direct by Steven Spielberg, and is currently a musical. If you haven’t read it, be prepared for it to be emotionally challenging.
As always, check the price before you click or tap that Buy button. This deal may not apply in your country, and it is for a limited time.
The Millions: “My New Year’s Resolution: Read Fewer Books”
Thanks to Publishers Weekly for the heads-up, through my morning Flipboard read, on this
by Michael Bourne.
I think people very often read because they set goals for themselves, and that’s not a bad thing. One person might want to read a book a week, and another might want to go through a “books you must read” list.
I’ve done it myself. When I managed a brick and mortar bookstore, I read a book in each section (and encouraged my employees to do the same).
That wasn’t because I thought I’d enjoy and learn from each one, necessarily, but I thought it could make me a better person (and bookseller).
I also always finish every book I start…even though that can sometimes be tough slogging. 
In both of those cases, it wasn’t reading for reading’s sake…it was, in a sense, to prove something. It was to have a sense of accomplishment.
Bourne relates it to running a marathon. It isn’t because you are trying to get somewhere, it is because you are trying to do something.
Certainly, there can be benefits to running marathons and to “reading marathons” (although on the former, I always want to point out to people that the marathon distance isn’t famous because it was healthy, but because it killed the first person).
It can also, though, be selfish. It can take time away from other things (and people) in your life, and if it isn’t really benefiting you (and them), is it worth it?
I thought the essay was a fascinating perspective, and I do recommend it.
Publishers Weekly: “Indie Bookstores Have Big Holiday Sales”
Speaking of PW, this is a heartening read
It is a report on their annual holiday sales survey of independent bookstore owners, and things look good. That included both long-established businesses and newbies.
That doesn’t mean that there weren’t and won’t continue to be significant closures. However, it does suggest that there isn’t a direct causative relationship between more e-content selling and local bookstores doing worse.
Asus gives up on netbooks
On the other hand, I do think tablets, like the iPad and the Kindle Fire, are directly impacting sales of netbooks.
This
makes it clear…after five years, the netbook is pretty much going away.
Simply, tablets are a better fit for the same functions.
It’s similar to the way that e-books are mashing the mass market paperback segment. Mass markets had the niche of being cheaper and more convenient than hardbacks or larger paperbacks. That role now goes to e-books (which also don’t decay in the same way), so MMPs are in real trouble.
What do you think? Will we see fewer new tablets and EBRs (E-Book Readers) introduced this year? Will B&N’s stock tank for the next couple of days (and then, perhaps, recover)? Are you still using a netbook? Should indie bookstores be supported just because they are indies? Why do you think people choose to shop there, rather than buying online? Feel free to let me and my readers know by commenting on this post.
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
January 4, 2013 at 7:05 am |
I’m not surprised by the ASUS announcement — my only wonder is : what took them so long. For those of us who follow the computer H/W marketplace closely, it has been apparent for a couple of years now that netbooks were toast. Ever since Apple announced the iPad on the one hand and the MacBook Air (MBA) on the other, the handwriting has been on the wall. Intel has been retargeting the design of its Atom chip (the CPU in most netbooks) for smartphones and tablets for at least the last two iterations..
I’m beginning to fear that much the same destiny awaits reflective EBRs like the early Kindles and Nooks. The following article from today’s WSJ makes that case:
http://professional.wsj.com/article/SB20001424127887323874204578219834160573010.html?mg=reno64-wsj
(google “For E-Readers, Ending May Loom” to get past wsj paywall).
There is a complicated dance to be played out between the utility of a dedicated function device like an EBR and its price. If EBR prices fall low enough (under $25 ??) such that buying one isn’t any kind of a financial stretch, then maybe the EBR will survive
January 4, 2013 at 3:06 pm |
Thanks for writing, Edward!
My guess is that what might end EBRs (E-Book Readers) is reflective screen integration into tablets. Quite simply, I don’t think that the attractiveness of non-distraction outweighs the inconvenience of carrying multiple devices. As people begin to see phablets as a necessary part of their lives, they’ll be less inclined to carry an additional EBR.
Even if EBRs disappear, I think we’ll see reflective screen technology eventually available for phablets, when it is fast enough for animation, and able to do color in a market effective manner. It’s simply much more pleasant in many situations, and the frontlighting such as we have on the Paperwhite solves the separate booklight problem.
One possibility is that EBRs go to a purchase price of zero, although I haven’t embraced that in the past. However, I could see that happening in conjunction with a subscription of some kind (either Prime as it is now, or “adult” versions of Kindle FreeTime Unlimited).
January 4, 2013 at 2:30 pm |
I got the 8.9 Fire Wi-Fi only when Amazon had the $50 off Gold Box deal. (I hadn’t planned getting one so soon, but I couldn’t resist the discount). I do like the extra screen space a lot, but I don’t have to take it with me that often and my eyesight isn’t very good. It makes sense that someone with good eyesight who takes it with them a lot would rather have the smaller version. In a way it seems odd that the more portable Fire does not have a 4G option since you are usually traveling when you need it.
Switch topic: Independent booksellers will probably have a much better chance now because they are more capable of responding to the community. How large was the store you managed? Was it a large chain?
A local large chain bookstore (Books-a-Million, I don’t think it is national) actually angered me several times, and that has as much to do with my infrequent visits as Amazon does. One incident: I tried to buy a book from them and they wouldn’t sell it to me. Really! It was published by a small, local specialty press and the price was not printed in it. Nor was the price marked anywhere else. When I tried to purchase it the cashier gave up and sent me to the acting manager, who tried to look it up but it wasn’t in the database. Since it was written by someone I knew and I really wanted to purchase the book, I offered to pay $10 for it (it was about 150 pages and a paperback – that was reasonable). The acting manager said, “I’m sorry, but I cannot sell you this book.” My response was “Why are you apologizing? You’re the one who lost a sale” and under my breath: “and a customer.”
How would you have handled that situation?
January 4, 2013 at 3:21 pm |
Thanks for writing, D.!
Books-A-Million is actually the second largest bookstore chain in the country, a position it assumed after the Borders bankruptcy.
It is, though, somewhat local, in the sense that it isn’t on the West Coast. I think they are in more than thirty states, though, through the South and Northeast, and Midwest.
Oh, here’s a list:
http://www.booksamillion.com/storefinder?id=5573121880656
Yes, the bookstores I managed were part of a large chain (I managed in two different locations).
Unfortunately, the simple answer is that the book probably should not have been on the shelf. Books-A-Million is a large chain, and if it wasn’t in the database, it probably didn’t come through proper channels. We would actually have people put their own books on the shelf without telling us, as a form of guerrilla marketing. I would have people walk into the store with a small stack of books, and ask if we would sell them and only pay them something if they sold. I could see a low level clerk taking books in a case like that, without understanding the situation.
Here’s the problem: the manager can’t just take the money you offer for the book, even if it is a thousand dollars. The money that the store receives has to be tracked, has to have accounting. I’ve mentioned before how big a deal employee theft is to a bookstore. Let’s say that manager took your ten dollars. How does it get rung up? It can’t be as another book. The manager can’t just pocket it.
Suppose the manager took the ten dollars, and then it turned out that the book was supposed to be sold for fifteen? You can’t judge a book’s price by its cover…or anything else about its appearance.
Having found that it wasn’t in the inventory, I would have immediately pulled it from the shelf. I would have taken your contact information, if you wanted to give it, and told you that we would get in touch with you when we had the situation resolved. If you told me you were a friend of the author, I would have explained that I wanted to make sure your friend got the proper compensation for the sale. I might even have offered to mail you the book if it turned out that we could sell it…if my higher-ups hadn’t agreed to that, I would have paid the few dollars myself. I would not have told you I paid for doing that, though.
January 4, 2013 at 7:45 pm |
I had already read the Seeking Alpha post about the KF89, and was coincidentally reading another post on that blog when your post came in. It turns out that Seeking Alpha is written by a Vermont college student (CS and math major) who has stumbled upon the Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM) and has become enamored of investing in stocks :grin. With those majors, if he is any good at it, he has an enjoyable and rewarding career on Wall St as a “Quant”
.
I bring this up because the sentiments he expresses about the KF89 were offered as the reason for the $50 discount given to students in January by Amazon in much of the technical and mainstream press.
I have to disagree. The KF89 ranks as the 8th best selling item in Amazon’s electronics store. Given the tens of thousands of items sold in that store, ranking in the top 10 is not too shabby. He then goes on to point out that all the higher priced versions of the KF89 (which presumably have higher margins) are doing less well. The thinking is that Amazon is disappointed in the KF89′s sales and is attempting to juice things with this discount.
I take Jeff Bezos at his word when he says Amazon makes money when people use their Kindles not when they buy them. This approach is hard for traditional analyst to follow. IMV the KF89 is designed as a follow-on to the KDX, and is not primarily aimed at mass market media consumers.
In the US the book publishing business is about a $30 billion activity with about half in the mass market segment, and the other half is in the educational, technical, and professional (ETP) segment. The smaller form factor kindles and other EBRs have primarily been successful in the mass market segment — not so much in ETP. Larger form factor EBRs and tablets are more likely to be successful in the ETP market. Bezos has been pretty clear since the introduction of the KDX that he would like to pick up a sizable chunk of the ETP business. This is proving to be hard to do, but it is worth pursuing because prices (and margins) are much higher in this segment.
January can be thought of as a mini “back to school” season for college and university students (the Amazon discount is aimed only at these students as you are required to have a .edu email address in order to get the discount). Many start their college careers in January instead of in the fall, and with new semesters starting, all new courses require students to go out and acquire all new books. So I think the KF89 offer is targeted more at increasing penetration in the ETP market than at any unhappiness with the level of KF89 sales. I also don’t think that the lower sales performance of the higher priced KFs is causing Amazon any great concern either.
ETP consumers will require a variety of features to accomplish their goals (although I do think the LTE versions are a waste — it would not surprise me if these aren’t dropped — WiFi is becoming ubiquitous — I have an LTE phone, and almost everywhere I go I find myself with WiFi access — which is faster and cheaper. If I ever did need LTE access from my KF89, I can always “tether” it to my LTE phone). The additional memory options are useful — and not all that expensive. I think Amazon is positioning the KF89 as a way to edge into the ETP business — not as any particular device-oriented revenue generator.
January 4, 2013 at 7:52 pm |
When I first heard of the student discount, I went to the Amazon site, but I didn’t easily find it — as it is listed in the “Amazon Student” section — which is a kind of student-targeted Amazon Prime membership. There’s no obvious pointer to textbooks or students from the main Amazon home page. If you go to the books home page, students have been highlighted for the last couple of days (due to the January offer, and the mini “back to school” thing), but textbooks aren’t even listed in the category roll on the left side of the Books page. Well maybe I’m missing something, but when I enter the Amazon store, I can find no mention of the student discount: not on the main Amazon home page, nor on the Books home page, nor on the Amazon Students home page. If I Google for the discount, I can get a link that takes me to an Amazon page that describes the discount, but I can’t find any obvious way to get to the discount page from within Amazon itself., Am I missing something?
Anyhow once you get to the textbooks and student pages they are well laid out, and the book rental option (seems similar to KOLL) will save you a bundle. Just for giggles I looked for some of my textbooks from 45 years ago. Samuleson’s “Economics” and Halliday and Resnick’s “Introductory Physics” were there, but the hardback prices were way over one hundred dollars (kindle editions were cheaper in the $60-80 range). Renting on the kindle was much better with prices in the $30-40 range.. One, Jansen’s “History of Art”, was only available in hardback (for a whopping $160
).
I would think that Amazon needs to highlight it’s ETP offerings more prominently — what they’re offering appears quite good. OTOH good devices and content is not enough: students and technical professionals like myself don’t typically read these books from cover to cover — we use them in other ways. The existing kindle reading apps are not IMO well-suited for this kind of usage. Amazon (or a 3rd party) needs to do something here before ebooks will make much of a splash in the ETP marketplace. What that might be, I have no idea — like I said this is a hard problem
.
One interesting sidenote: in my spelunking around, and in my own experiences buying these kinds of books, I almost never run across agency pricing. Even though the prices of this stuff seem to be out of sight, Amazon’s prices are quite a bit lower than the ebook editions on offer from the publishers direct (with a very few exceptions).
January 10, 2013 at 3:22 pm |
I don’t expect to buy a new netbook any time soon, simply because my 4 year old Asus EeePC 1000 netbook still works extremely well with its SSD storage and running Windows 7 Home Premium. If the Acer 3700 desktop PC on which I’m typing this ever fails, I’ll just hook up the Asus to its screen and keyboard again. When I’m mostly just surfing the Web, most any PC is good enough. Sadly for Microsoft, I see no reason whatsoever to even look at Windows 8, or Office upgrades.
I did recently buy a Samsung Chromebook, but only for its free 2 years of Verizon data service when traveling. That solved the no service problem we had traveling with our AT&T iPhone. Thus far, I haven’t found anything I need to do while traveling that the Chromebook and iPhone can’t handle easily.
We also have an original iPad at home, mostly used as a kidputer, and no interest in upgrading it or switching to a Fire any time soon.
Amazingly, all this hardware put together cost less than the last PC I bought at work before retiring. And every one of these devices runs the Kindle app well.
We also have 3 Kindles: A new Paperwhite for the middlewife so she can read it at night instead of the iPhone, a Keyboard we still love for its text-to-speech ability, and a soon-to-be-given-away 2 which has a bad spot in the top right corner of its screen, but otherwise still works fine.)